Like an end-game boss that won’t stop taking on final forms, Diablo 3 is back, yet again. First, there was the vanilla release on PC which many decried at launch as a poor return to form for the famed series. Then came the console port, which proved leagues better than the tainted PC release. After that was the PC expansion, Reaper of Souls, which improved on all the console port’s improvements, and now today we have the whole damn package coming to consoles for one final “definitive” version.

Follow that?

In short, Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition is a culmination of everything that has come before it after years of patching and tweaking the original product, turning it from something of a miss to something of a can’t-miss. By the end, there are few ARPG dungeon crawlers better than the finalized version of D3, and now on next-gen consoles, this really may be the best version of all.

What’s different? That’s an incredibly difficult question. If you quit shortly after launch, the answer is everything. If you’ve been playing Reaper of Souls all summer, the answer is not very much at all.

Ultimate Evil carries over many of the signature improvements of the last few console and PC iterations of the game. Most notably, Legendary items have been reworked to be both more frequently found, and more enjoyable with unique affixes that aren’t just hearty stat boosts. Rather than bracers giving you +300 strength instead of +200, they might give you a speed boost every time you smash part of the scenery. Or they might spawn an enemy pack each time you activate a buff shrine. It’s a welcome change, and one that creates a lot more diversity of play when concocting interesting builds.

The game’s end-game content is now restructured as well, with an endless array of randomized dungeons to loot called “Nephalem Rifts.” There are scores of bounties to complete in the unconstrained “Adventure Mode,” where you can teleport anywhere, at any time, and don’t have to deal with the pesky “story” of the game. It’s all just monsters and loot, as God intended.

As this version contains the expansion, there’s a new, lengthy final Act V which makes up for the phoned-in Act IV in the original version, and it comes complete with a new class, the tank-like Crusader, a quasi-resurrection of D2′s famed Paladin. The Crusader is a touch awkward at first with console controls, but once more skills are unlocked in time, that ceases to be an issue.

I’ve played Ultimate Evil on PS4 for a long while now, and though I don’t have a maxed out character decked out in the finest Legendary finery yet, I’ve played a healthy amount of the game to form a solid impression.

It’s still fun.

Yes, this is technically the fourth or fifth variant of the game I’ve played, and I can quote nearly every line by heart at this point, but even if I’m growing weary of it, I have to say that objectively, this could very well be the best version of the game out there.

I’ve made no secret of my preference for the game on console over PC. Console D3 plays like an arcade dungeon fighter, is an absolute blast with friends, and I do not miss the incessant clicking and key mashing that comes with PC monster slaying. Inventory management is a pain until you understand how to do it quickly, but overall, the game functions wonderfully with a controller. And this 1080p/60FPS version looks rather gorgeous on PS4 as well. The graphics themselves might not be anything revolutionary, as there’s only so much to upgrade within the engine, but there’s a smoothness here I’ve never seen across any other version of the game, and it makes it a joy to play.

Playing through all five Acts with my brand new Crusader (I didn’t bother taking my PS3 out of mothballs to import my past character data), Diablo 3′s difficulty curve proves as wonky as ever. It’s certainly better than the system the game launched with, where you were literally forced to beat story mode four times with each character on varying difficulties before reaching the endgame. Here, you can constantly adjust the game’s difficulty on a slider, which is a rather strange experience, but still preferable to the original system. This will happen frequently as the gear you acquire snowballs rapidly. By the end of the game, I’d jumped up three difficulty levels with many more still to unlock. The ultimate goal of Diablo 3 is to be able to survive in the highest difficulty, while killing monsters as fast as you can, which results in better gear and more upgrades. It’s an endless pursuit, but often an enjoyable one. At least for the better part of a hundred hours or so, if this is your type of game.

Most players will likely find their first playthrough to be breezy unless they’re consistently trying to challenge themselves by cranking up the difficulty. But it’s kind of tough to ask a player to constantly make themselves feel weaker in the game by doubling or tripling enemy health bars and damage output. Only when you start one-shotting anything and everything do you say “alright, I should probably stop playing wiffle-ball here.”

During this section of the game, gear upgrades are a bit rudimentary. You pick up new items and little green arrows pop up, showing you whether it’s a small or large improvement over your current piece of armor or weapon. If so, you flick up on the D-pad and hit X to equip it, and suddenly you’re anywhere from 5% to 100% more powerful, depending on the new item. I’ve literally had my damage double from a new weapon before, but that sort of loot won’t last forever. Eventually at max level, you’re going to have to be more selective about your gear, and actually work to make things synergize with one another as you try to form an end-game build. I wish there was more of that leading up to level 70, as for the first 20 or so hours of the game, it’s just kind of a mindless free-for-all. That may be part of the appeal of D3, but this version makes it more simplistic than ever, and a little complexity wouldn’t hurt. But why spend time designing a cool level 50 gear set when twenty minutes later, level 52 gear will make all of it useless? Unless you’ve never played the story before, it can often feel like Diablo 3 doesn’t even start until level 70.

This is a tough version to review because it all depends on when (or if) you started playing the series, and where you last left off with it. As someone who has followed the game in all its versions since launch, I’m a touch disappointed there isn’t more to differentiate it from PC Reaper of Souls, other than random new inserts like monsters that will kill your friends in their games, and come stomping across the internet tubes to your game as you try to avenge them. Cool, but a minor addition. The console port of the original PC version was leaps and bounds better than the Auction House-burdened, crappy loot-infested PC D3, but here? Blizzard seems to think they’ve perfected the formula at this point, so why mess with success? And maybe they’re right.

But for someone else coming in having only played D3 a few years ago, or not at all, it’s hard to imagine they wouldn’t have a great time with Ultimate Evil. Looking at the wider scope, it probably is the best of all possible worlds. The best looking, most functional version of the game, and something to play on your new-gen console which is sorely lacking big titles this summer.

It may not shake up the series like the initial console port did, but the game has been refined and distilled into something pretty great all the same. I have an unsubstantiated hunch that there may yet be one more expansion coming, given that D3 has sold 20M copies across all platforms, so we may see more variants of this game yet.

For now, enjoy Ultimate Evil as either your 4th go-round in the D3 universe, or your first.

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